


Winter Sunsets

by SilverShortyyy



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:50:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverShortyyy/pseuds/SilverShortyyy
Summary: Pre-Trial of Petyr Baelish-Sansa escapes away for a while, and Petyr finds her where they last saw each other before it all went to hell.There are scarcely any sunsets during the winter, but Petyr finds red hair is just as likely to set the sun as red skies.





	Winter Sunsets

**Author's Note:**

> It’s unrealistic to think that Sansa would leave Winterfell at all at that time, but I’d like to think of her having a conversation with Petyr about all that happened since Moat Cailin, while looking at Moat Cailin. So, for poetic reasons, here we are.

Petyr finds Sansa where they were civil last, outlooking Moat Cailin from the south.

If then, they wore black of similar fashion, her outer sleeves cut like his always was, now she wore thick furs, a red braid — not a black one — cascading over one shoulder, a Stark true to her name, with ferocity like Arya’s but beauty like Catelyn’s, and all the strength of her father and brothers.

Petyr, meanwhile, has not changed. Probably a few more grey hairs, but nothing more.

“You hate me, don’t you?” He tries to smirk, and the failed attempt seeps into his voice.

She answers him with silence.

“How was I to know that Ramsay Bolton would treat you so harshly, so cruelly?”

Again, silence, and it felt to him as if the mere foot between them was the whole ocean, the whole seven kingdoms laid to keep them apart.

She’d wish for that. He knows it.

He wants to keep her from doing such, and he almost lets himself.

Almost.

“But you hate me for more than just that, don’t you?”

With her, he could never keep up the charade. He taught her, after all, and taught her he did.

Taught her, and pressed his lips on her, and felt her lean into his touch on more occasions than one.

But maybe there was a difference, is a difference, in enjoying someone’s company, and choosing them.

In the summer, the sun would set and cast a beautiful sight on Moat Cailin. But it is winter, and the only fire is in Sansa’s hair, far from him, unreachable even if he could touch it if he dared.

He did not dare.

She doesn’t look at him when she speaks.

“I hate you because you made me marry into another family who killed mine.” She says. He should put a hand on her arm, close the gap. He doesn’t. He can’t. “I hate you because you could have been careful about it, but you weren’t.” All he can do is stare at her, watch her, watch her lips open and close, breathing into life his sins. “I hate you because you made me marry a monster and left me before you could even make sure I was alright.”

He licks his lips, but his lips remain dry. His throat is dry. Mouth is dry. His voice doesn’t speak when he opens his mouth, no silver tongue darting out.

He’d fall to his knees if he knew he could.

He couldn’t. He can’t.

“I hate you because you proved worthy of my trust and yet you besmirched it and left me to rot.”

Sansa has tears in her eyes. Petyr’s hand reaches for her, almost towards her cheek, but he stops.

He cannot wipe her tears away. He cannot caress her scars knowing he made them.

“And I think I hate you most of all because while you thought it best to carry on scheming and plotting, you still had the gall to kiss me like you did.”

A tear rolls down her cheek. Her voice catches. Petyr finally lets himself look away.

He turns away from her, to Moat Caillin. Eyes casted downward, he imagines the dawn rising on dewy grass.

“In another life, I‘d have been more careful.” His voice is quiet, sorrowful. “In another life, I’d have loved you more.”

“But this isn’t another life.” Sansa says, and the words sting more than his sins that she had brought to life. “And you betrayed me, even while you loved me.”

If anyone told him earlier in his life that the love of his life would be, indeed, not Catelyn Stark, but Sansa Stark, he wouldn’t have believed them.

The snow stretches far. Winter came and summer had gone.

Sansa was truly a Stark, Petyr thinks. The cold bite of winter.

“Did you?” He says, almost a whisper in the wind. “Ever love me?”

The wind carries his words over, but the wind carries nothing back.

He closes his eyes against the sharpness of the world, bows his head in surrender. He clutches his fists closed as he listens to her walk away, feet crunching through the snow. He listens, and listens until the sound of her footsteps fade away in the wind, almost as far as the end of the seven kingdoms, as far as the edge of the world.

The winter winds freeze his tears, and its howls silence his sobs.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song _Sunsetz_ by Cigarettes After Sex


End file.
